Friday, May 6, 2011

A bunch of nothing...

MSNBC ran an article in honor of mother's day describing what a stay-at-home mom is worth. They even included a link to a salary calculator to see what your actual pay should be in your area. Apparently here in the Springs I should be making $108,000 for watching PBS right now with Austin. I remember before I had kid(s) I always said that I could never be a stay-at-home mom, probably because I run on food, water and compliments and the chief complaint that I hear from my friends that have tried staying at home (none of which were successful) was that after every day of keeping everything is order it was hard to even get a thank you much less a pat on the back. I quite obviously have a very different type of situation going on since I get to stay at home with Austin and work, but it became painfully apparent the other day watching Austin figure something out for herself that if for some reason I needed to give up something in my life due to time constraints that work would be the first to go. While that would mean that we would in fact have to hunt our own food I just don't see another option until the girls are in school.

Not only do I refuse to celebrate a person's death but again I can't stand to see so much acceptable racism flying around after we "got" Osama bin Laden. I was listening to people talking about how we killed the Muslim or the jihad or worse yet...ones that I won't type on my blog. Labeling bin Laden a Muslim for any other reason than to describe what religion he believes in would be as much of a shame as to say the church that pickets soldiers funerals are Christians. They may believe that the work they are doing is in Christ's footsteps but I assure you that is only one part of their personality and thus only one of the descriptive words that can be used to describe them. If all Muslims were violent or believed what bin Laden did we would live in a much darker society since the Muslim religion is still the largest.

Two cases here in town lately have caused me to question some of our means in which to punish those that break the law. One case a mother left her two children in the bath tub while she went across the street to a store. The two year old got out of the bath tub and turned back on the hot water thus scalding and drowning his 8 month old brother. In the other case a mom and her aunt bound a two year old girl with tape and placed her in a cold shower for spilling her drink. She nearly drowned but didn't and is recovering in the hospital. So here's my issue. I believe the first mom is negligent and shouldn't be allowed to be around any one's children much less her own, but I do not believe that she is a danger to society. Whereas the second mom and her aunt tortured another human being, a helpless one at that. Of course with the way laws are written the first mom will end up having far greater punishment since the boy died and I completely agree that this poor little boy never has the chance to grow up and leave his childhood behind like the little girl in shower does, I just worry about the severity of punishment for negligent death vs. torture.

I found a website dedicated to what women's bodies look like after pregnancy that was truly inspirational. I know for myself that I have a lot of stretch marks not just on my stomach but my hips, thighs and just about anywhere else my skin could fit one in and they have been a source of embarrassment ever since they showed up. And even when I ran in the IronMan I still had a flabby midsection where the skin had been stretched to accommodate Austin's 8 pound body. I hated it and only found myself dreading what would be a worse hot mess after baby two. That is until I was reading through this website and found how many women look just like I did, some in shape some not, some all stretched to beat the band like me and some not...but all totally exposed and totally fine with it. It was a great feeling to read through their updates about how miraculous their bodies were in allowing a whole other (or multiple) person to grow inside them. Just in case any of you need an inspirational website today...http://theshapeofamother.com.

2 comments:

I couldn't agree more about a mother staying at home. The peace that leaves the home when a mother leaves the home to work is so evident one can almost feel it. Sometimes it's funny to think about my house as peaceful when we're in the thick of it, but I can't image how much worse it would be if this wasn't my job. And in terms of Thank You's and pats on the backs, I can't help but think of it as doing good deeds even when nobody notices, kind of like filling the karma bank you talk about.

You're a great mom and are so beautiful, Crystal! I'm proud to call you my SIL.

I've seen that website too and I thought it was so amazing! I think all or most of us get body anxiety and so many women, with or without children, seem to dread that aspect of motherhood. But I love that the women on the website reclaim their 'mama' bodies and celebrate the reason why they got that way in the first place! Amazing stuff :-)